The Radiologist's Night Visit

The Radiologist's Night Visit is the nocturnal first encounter between the narrator and the radiologist, the man who will become her lover. It is the origin point of the affair that runs through the novel, establishing the pattern of secret, night-time assignations and the strange intimacy of two people who recognize each other's despair. The scene is narrated from the radiologist's perspective, a rare shift that frames the affair's beginning not as seduction but as a shared recognition of mutual brokenness, staged as a gothic, almost supernatural encounter in the darkness of her garden.

The Night Journey

The visit begins with the radiologist's stealthy departure from his own home. The night is described as "high, black and smooth above us," an "unwelcoming, pretentious darkness." He leaves his wife dreaming beside him, the mosquito coils disintegrated, carrying the smell of teenage holidays. He dresses in the darkness of the hallway, carries his shoes to the door, and ties his laces below the open sky, only starting his motorcycle's engine after pushing it a block away. The journey is marked by strange, unsettling sights: trees chopped down by a single blow from an axe, rabbit skulls riddled with holes scattered like flowers at the entrance to the woods, and a cluster of nocturnal butterflies that flutter around his head, into his ears, under his collar, tangling in his hair and flying up his nose. Even the fresh air off the hill and the road does not take away his feeling of being smothered. He rides along the motorway, passing peaceful men carrying rifles and machetes, getting closer to her "in large leaps."

The Approach and the House

He passes the houses that come before hers: the one with the boarded-up windows, the one with the fake roses outside, the one with the twin Siberian huskies. He turns off the engine, leaves the motorcycle leaning in the grass, and moves towards her front gate. He walks there and back, seeing and not seeing into her garden and house, able to make out only fragments through the foliage. Then a light pierces the pitch darkness; someone has just woken up, or it is the baby, shaken by the images in his dreams. He puts his hand on the gate latch and sets foot in her territory for the first time. Her house before him looks like a landscape. He flattens the earth with his shoes, takes a few steps forward, careful not to be seen from either of the two small front windows, and runs his hand along a wall cracked as though by lightning, making his way round to the back of the house. The light is still on, but nothing more than the aggressive shhh of the barn owl can be heard.

The Gothic Encounter

The radiologist's expectations are supernatural and fearful. He expects to see her come down through the air in a white nightdress, possessed by spirits, or appear in the window with red eyes, or float above the roof dressed all in black. In her space, he feels the hatred that digs at her womb and begs not to be infected by the depression she feels at having to live, calling her "infectious, the bitch. Infectious and so beautiful." Another window opens, a sudden gash in the wall. Too scared to run away, he stays put and waits for something to happen: for her husband to come out, a dog to bite him, or for her to appear, which would be more frightening still. He hears creaking thumps on a wooden staircase; her feet are metal talons, her long hair hanging to the floor made of particles. He stands like a statue with wet feet. She appears, riding the wind towards him but pulled back by a strong gust. Suspended in mid-air, she opens her glorious mouth as if to scream but nothing comes out. He can hardly restrain himself, finding her irresistible even though she is a few steps away from the septic tank. Despite his violent lust, his desire to gobble her up, to inhale her, he does not move. Neither does she.

The First Meeting and Its Aftermath

The radiologist marks this as the moment they first met, there among the shadows. In that instant, they share the tragedies of their lives, talking about the past, about why they are in this pit, this insect-infested hole, and why they are running away in the middle of the night. She tells him to grab a knife and slice his lip open. He obeys while she gallops into the house, and even with her back turned she is watching him bleed. He escapes on his motorcycle, waking everyone up. The scene establishes the affair's defining dynamics: the radiologist's obsessive, almost predatory pursuit; the narrator's commanding, even cruel initiation; and the mutual recognition of two people who see in each other a shared despair and a shared refusal of their lives. The gothic imagery of the encounter — the possessed woman, the floating figure, the scream that produces no sound — casts their love as something otherworldly and doomed, a bond forged in the recognition of mutual brokenness rather than in ordinary romance.